Blondin, you have some Esplanin to do.

That's a whole other topic - that analogy. I hadn't thought about that when making my post. My analogy was that digital $ is digital $, and online poker sites were the same as SL-online gambling, legally speaking.

I was talking about their hands being tied once it became illegal in America. It's an American company.

Lindens are a currency because they equate to real money, in an instant. So did online gambling at gambling or poker sites. You buy chips or whatever, and you cash them in. Far as I know that's legal only in Nevada and Atlantic City in the U.S. and not online at all, since that law was passed.

The difference is people do loose real money gambling, they don't get real rapes role playing, also, if someone "agrees" to role play something it's not against their will.

Scylla's push is based on it being bad for a person and a societies mind to see the animations. Which will never get out of the debate or unknown to be legit enough to make sense.

On the lobby groups, yeh, they can push until people just get over it and give in, that said, the government filter thing here in Australia had the ISP's and a huge majority of the people telling the government to get thoroughly fu*ked. It's when it starts to look like 1984 people just flip out.

Yeh, wouldn't lindens just be like casino chips as far as play money goes?

/me nods. That's what I am saying.

Ya basically it was the motivation for gambling to go away..

As far as the sex industry for mainland goes..I see it in a real vulnerable state right now if it doesn't have a strong showing in these swaps..I'm not sure how filled up Zindra is getting..But in two weeks the Auctions start for land that is going to have some value to it..

I'm not saying LL is or isn't trying to get rid of the sex industry..But if it were my grid and i wanted to thin it down without losing tier..What better way than to isolate it on the most valuable island??Then open up that island to everyone that wants land that they feel is going to have good value to invest in..

There is going to be a lot of changing hands for a bit and i think it is going to be something to keep an eye on..

It's just a feeling but to me i feel they are going to have us decide how thick or thin the sex industry ends up being in all that..

And ya i agree..I think they are about done with bad PR..this whole Zindra thing kind of sets that tone..They want a new image..

Not to mention the careful choice of the first name 'Scylla'...

[Selective quoting to save space, not to imply I'm dismissive of the full content - on the contrary, my response relates to everything by this poster that I've read in this thread and others.]

We could talk about it, but you appear to confuse ‘talking' with expecting people to adopt your way of thinking. What you’re saying here is that if you can’t get consensus for your view, you’ll pursue other avenues. That’s not ‘a mutually respectful accommodation of our differing perspectives’ - that’s an insistence on getting your own way.

As an old-school feminist (and trust me, I’m talking original old-school), it's my opinion that you do the feminist cause no favours by bringing this type of crusade to a recreational platform. Yes, you call it ‘education’, I call it a ‘crusade’. There is a marked difference in the modus operandi of the two.

I could identify the many holes in your arguments, and probably produce an equal amount of peer-reviewed research evidence to suggest that cartoon representations of sexual activity or violence do not result in either real-life re-enactment or reinforcement of negative stereotypes by the vast, sane majority.

However, I think it would be a waste of time, because contrary to what you say, you are not here ‘trying to discuss this’. Yours is the most insidious form of vigilantism since you aim to persuade people to your way of thinking while threatening, albeit in a polite, round about way, more drastic action if they fail to convert.

You show no respect for the fact that most of us here are equally intelligent, articulate people perfectly capable of drawing our own distinction between fantasy roleplay and the negative representation of either men or women. There is therefore no 'debate' to be had.

Ceka - I agree it may well be on shaky ground, but to me the rape thing isn't an analogy that lines up squarely, because the gambling ban was because it became illegal. Rape roleplay is not as yet illegal. Bad press is another thing entirely, in my opinion.

Some have speculated that the Zindra move was brought about in part by legislation working its way through congress about certain issues and if so that would help explain it, to me. But then, things like perception in the press are somewhat harder to quantify, than legislation = online ban.

No i don't think there will really be a problem with rape role play..
Wasn't there something awhile back where it couldn't be listed on certain things??Like pose balls or something..Maybe that was the snuff thing or it was RL pictures..I forget..
Either way i see it now so it must not have been too much of a problem..the rl pictures are gone but i see the words all over the search..

I was more or less speaking of the sex industry altogether..It had nothing to do with pressure i don't think..I used to think that but i think it has to do with where LL wants to go..They can't really say..Well no more sex industry as of tomorrow..that would hit their tier..And thats not saying they want to get rid of it..but if they did i think they would find a way to ease out..

As far as this rape role play..LL has done everything to put things like that out of sight..I don't think there is any bad PR there..Because the press cannot say it is all over the grid anymore..
Me saying they are done with bad press more or less means it was handled in this move to Zindra..

I don't think some group is gonna come a long and say take this out and LL listen to them..Not unless they have to listen..
Because it is more like bondage or restraint than it is anything else..I don't see it going anywhere and as i have said before ..SL is not turning someone into something that is going to go out and do this..That person would have already been made before they got here..If anything i would think it would curb the feeling..

This sidetrack about gambling risks veering far off topic, but also contains some misinformation that could be confusing for reasoning by analogy with adult businesses. I'm not going to rehash the whole gambling mess again, but just a few facts: online gambling is not illegal in the US, but electronic funds transfer from US sources (to anywhere) for gaming is illegal (and that may yet change); the anti-gambling policy had a brief and relatively small effect on the amount of gambling in SL: it mainly changed the gambling-relevant terms available for Search and gave some scripters a way to earn a lot of L$s introducing a new generation of glorified slot machines; the total L$s exchanged in SL gambling is a vast overestimate of the amount of revenue it generates for casinos because games pay out in winnings a large majority of the take (casinos have many other expenses, too--of which I was one, for a time ).*

Can we expect the Adult Content policy to have as weak an effect as the gambling ban? Of course it will be different because LL is merely moving adult businesses--it makes no pretense of closing them, as it did with gambling. I think that means it will have a greater effect, actually, because gambling could continue mostly unchanged; there was some swapping of parcels then, too, when existing casinos sold off their parcels and bought different land for various "clubs" in which to host their new, Linden-approved slot machines, but it didn't introduce a whole continent of "gambling in disguise."

Coincidentally, at almost the exact same time as the gambling ban, LL went on a binge of sim auctions, driving land prices through the floor. (We should be so lucky as to still recognize that "floor"--the market has never since approached those levels.) That's coincidental because Zindra is dumping a huge amount of land into the market--even before auctions start--as migrants shed their Mature land by either selling or abandoning it.

I believe that LL hopes this Adult Content policy will increase total land ownership because no one parcel can any longer serve all the purposes of a single Mature parcel before the change. (Adult land comes closest, but it's invisible in Search for many residents, and has a verification requirement--albeit minimal--for access.) It remains to be seen whether that increased demand materializes, and if so, whether it approaches the supply added with Zindra.

_______
*It also introduced a new cast of characters in the gambling business; I don't know how many of the new casino owners are just alts of the old casino owners, from back when they could openly called "casinos". For that matter, I don't know how many are alts of G-Team members, either.

If you're going to role-play gambling you have to be gambling for matchsticks, pebbles, or something else with no resale value. Otherwise you're not role-playing gambling, you're gambling.

I reeeeaaallly wish we could stop referring to the consensual activities between two adults using somewhat laughable animations in a computer game as "rape". That word is being so diluted in the SL context and it is a disservice to all who have suffered this in Real Life.

You need to get out more. I think 23 States allow for Casino Gambling now.

And pretty much the major industry on lots of tribal lands. Also it has been legal here in CA (Tahoe) for a long time.

"consensual activities"? -- Agreed, unless there is good evidence to the contrary

"laughable animations"? -- Definitely

"a computer game"? -- In this context, yep.

"as 'rape'" -- I agree entirely that these simulations are not "rape" and that to compare them directly to RL sexual assault is a disservice to the latter. This is why I try very hard to always refer to these as "representations" or "depictions" or "simulations" or rape, violence against women, etc.

Notwithstanding some reservations I have about simplistic or reductive notions of "consent" in SL, my main focus is upon depictions of sexual violence here as a form of extreme pornography. And I will continue to call these depictions of "rape" because the animations themselves generally do (even where weasel-terms like "forced sex" are used).

Language DOES matter: as I've said before, I have no objections whatsoever to an animation that depicts hair pulling during sex. I DO object to its identification by the maker as "forced sex" or "rape." Were it called something else, I would pass by in silence.

I do hope you are not presenting your own post as a model of open discourse? Because it looks to me like little more than a personal denunciation of me, my integrity, and my supposedly sinister motivations and goals.

I'd respond to this in detail, but that would be tedious and pointless: you've made up your mind about me, and no amount of citing what I ACTUALLY say or stand for is likely to change that. You are too busy looking for nonexistent subtexts to pay attention anyway.

I am rather mystified as to how my position, which explicitly repudiates a BAN on rape role play, can be used to characterize me as a sort of wild-eyed fanatic.

I have asked for ONE concession. ONE. I ask that depictions of sexual violence not be in public areas.

Or is this just me pretending to be moderate? Where is your proof of my "real" intentions?

On a slightly different note, I have no doubt that you can find sources, studies, etc., that critique the view that pornography causes social harm. I very much wish that you WOULD reference them. This is not a challenge, but a request: I am trying to include materials on both sides of the debate in the bibliography I am compiling (which already includes, for instance, online materials from RL BDSM organizations). Any references you can provide me would be gratefully received.

And no, I will not take your unwillingness to do so as some sort of confirmation that you don't have access to such materials: I already know that they exist. You can help me out with this, or not, as you choose.

"yes, your honor, the defendant broke into my appartment, then forced me at gunpoint to start my computer and log into secondlife, then his avatar repeatedly raped my avatar."


somehow i can't really see that happen in court.

if you dont want to play, log out.
if you don't log out, you seem to want to play.

Lance, I think you may have just provided a better example of "reductive" and "simplistic" than I ever could have. Thanks for that.

Scylla isn't, so you needn't apologize.

And yes, I agree that these issues are fraught with contradictions, paradoxes, and complexity. Which is precisely why I want to avoid either reductive extreme: the "there are no limits to my natural freedom" approach, or the "ban everything offensive" perspective. Both attempt to reduce the complexity of real human culture to an unworkable soundbite.

Correct.

Melodie, you are, as they say, teaching granny to suck eggs.

Why would you assume that we are feminists only between log-in and log-out? Do you think that we are just role playing this? Our activism in SL both supplements and is very much part of a continuum with our real life activism.

I am ENORMOUSLY proud to be associated with the other women and men of the SLLUFN precisely because they ARE so engaged with real life issues. The group includes RL university-level teachers of women's studies (three that I know of, anyway), women who are working in RL crisis and counseling centres, and who are active in the area of violence against women in their real life communities. One of our members runs an SL support group for women who have been abused in RL. Another is working tirelessly in RL and SL, through our group and others like Amnesty International, to raise awareness about the institutional use of rape by the current regime in Iran. (This was actually the subject of our last meeting.)

We are active in SL because it, like any other online tool, is both separate from but also a part of RL experience. We are fighting extreme porn here for the same reason that we are fighting it elsewhere on the internet. We are also employing it in the way that Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks are employed: as a medium to educate and get the word out.

Please don't condescend by implying that we are merely "playing" at our commitment to feminism. You do a terrible disservice to me and my colleagues.

However, if you would like a slight expansion on my previous response, here it is. You see SL as public space - I see it as a privately-owned virtual reality that one chooses to log into and is free to log out of at any time, unlike logging out of FL, which is a rather different kind of terminal experience. I am not interested in SL as an extension of my FL experience in any way whatsoever.

Correct. In the same way that a privately-owned shopping mall, theatre, or other publicly-accessible building in RL is "public space."

One of the more interesting and difficult challenges, I think, will be to develop a definition of "public" and "private" space in SL. LL bandies these terms about without much thought as to what they might actually mean.

However badly they flub it, however, it is important to note that the private owner of SL itself acknowledges the distinction between "public" and "private" here.

Then our view of SL is fundamentally different.

'Publicly-accessible building' in FL is public space because you can physically move your body in and out of that space. You are subject to Foucault's notion of 'the gaze', if you will, and subject to FL laws of public and social behaviour. Social cohesion is dependent on adherence to these laws and behaviours.

Virtual reality, by contrast, is head space. There is no reason why the same laws and behaviours should apply. You don't like the look of something? Turn away. Nobody is going to come to real harm as a result. I come to SL to experiment, to explore, to push boundaries, to build, to play games, to do things I could not - or would not - do in FL. It is first and foremost for me an entertainment platform, and I regret the increasing push towards social networking and the doing of 'good works'.

I'm also an Amnesty member, and active in a range of human rights groups, but I'm not in the least interested in furthering those ideals within SL. They already occupy enough time in another part of my life - SL is my retreat from that life, and I don't need anybody telling me I should bring first life mores into my leisure time. Hence, you will understand, my unwillingness to engage further with this particular debate.

I'm just going to throw a few links into the mix here - make of them what you will:

http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/newsletter/n21.html

Two articles on this page - "virtual violence" and "Virtual harm and attachment" They start around 1/3 of the way down the page.

and a few more

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/commentary/sexdrive/2007/05/sexdrive_0504

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/28755256/Second-Thoughts-About-Second-Life

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/08/056259/Japanese-ESRB-Bans-Rape-Depiction-In-Games?from=rss

I don't know what the point I'm trying to me here as I have a position on this which is not even close to well defined yet (very unlike me to not have an opinion I'd defend). I can see the point that some people can completely detach their virtual & RL experiences, but I also know of a lot of people who chose not to.

Up to a point I can accept things that happen in virtual worlds whereas if it was rl I'd be calling the authorities and for me the difference between the two is consent.

My concern is, right or wrong, that I instinctively believe that there is an influence despite the detachment and I'd need hard data before I change my mind on that.

I don't know where the line of acceptable behaviour is drawn, who should draw it and how it should be applied.

What is the difference between public activities that would offend a majority of the population and griefing?

SL is a classic for this. I keep looking at examples of the issues that are most prevalent in SL trying to get a handle on what I really think of this and am at a loss.

Somehow it's ok to undertake the most egregious behaviour towards each other but it's not ok to copybot. The more I read the screams from those who don't see why their behaviour is considered unacceptable/should be modified the less I care about those who scream IP theft. If we tolerate one then I don't see why everything shouldn't be acceptable - after all, it's only pixels and data.

There's certainly a sizeable number of people inworld who don't recognise the rights of others and don't understand the concept of consent. Is education better than slapdowns? I think so but particularly in here it's hard to change behaviour.

Does it boil down to the tension between the web still being seen as entertainment rather than a pixellated extension of rl?

I really don't know. I wish someone could answer this for me though.